Baby's Breath
by Akktri
Summary: Sapphire and Steel investigate a series of unexplained infant deaths, and a mysterious cat.


A fat brown skinned baby lay flat on his back on Circo designer brown and pink polka dot sheets, couched in by Circo pillows, Circo blankets, and the very best in hypoallergenic stuffed toys available for purchase on Target gift registries.  
Directly above the baby hung a battery powered Baby Einstein mobile of the solar system, an almost one hundred percent accurate representation if you don't count the small parts they left out to prevent a choking hazard. It seemed Pluto had been one such part. Mr. and Mrs. Hernandez had chosen it because they hoped it would boost the baby's brain, and because the Stock Market Guru model was a few years in beta.  
The Veronica's Essentials crib, with its red laquered fencing designed to prevent unsafe falls, appeared to be an impenetrable fortress, and the sides could even be raised to head level when the tyke got old enough to dive over the rail. For added security, or perhaps to save space, the crib was hemmed in by two tall dressers.  
Night had fallen. The lights to the nursery had been switched off, but the Baby Comforts Wyken and Blynken night light still shed a feeble flicker upon the edge of the crib. A bright full moon cast its pale rays through a nearby window, bathing the small body in eerie light, and casting the shadows of tree branches across the blankets and assorted accoutrements.  
The door to the room had been left partly open, the light from the hallway illuminating a slice of the crib with its knife edged beam.  
The baby was not asleep, for, as you may or may not know, infants do all their sleeping during the day, so they can wake you up at all hours of the night. That being said, the parents had been given a temporary reprieve. The baby rested in a calm stupor, its needs for food, cleanliness, burping and cuddling already fulfilled to the point of complacency. It drowsily sucked its thumb, staring at the ceiling with a bored expression on its face.  
The sliver of light expanded as the furry head of a black feline nosed its way into the nursery, padding across the mass produced plush ZuuBabies collectible panda rug, and with effortless grace, the cat launched itself off the cartoon eyeballs, landing on a garishly painted high backed chair with a soft thud. The seat was still warm. The mother had been sitting there just minutes before, breastfeeding and rocking the child to sleep.  
The silent domesticated predator cleared the lip of the tall adjacent dresser with no effort whatsoever, then it dropped down to the crib railing, walking along the edge with the confidence of a bored tightrope walker.  
The cat sprang lightly on the bed covers, padding up along the baby's legs. Little Jose's eyes flew open, but he did not scream, even as he felt the pointy nails sliding across his fat thighs.  
He knew kitty cat. He once had tried to chew on kitty's ear. He was not afraid. And if kitty were going to stick his claws into his Pampers, he was going to find a stinky.  
That did not happen, but the cat did place a paw on his naked chest in a way that didn't fit with what Jose knew about kitty cats.  
The paw was stretched out in a weird way, like a televangelist pronouncing healing upon a man with cancer. The other paw pressed uncomfortably upon his armpit, due to having to support the rest of the cat.  
Jose was too fascinated to cry out. He just stared at kitty with wide eyed wonderment, a wonderment that steadily grew as kitty opened his mouth and something like words rolled out on its velvety tongue.  
"Wynken, Blynken and nod one night sailed off in a wooden shoe.  
Sailed on a river of crystal light into a sea of dew.  
`Where are you going, and what do you wish?' the old moon asked the three.  
`We have come to fish for the herring fish-"  
The sliver of light grew larger as a short swarthy woman with curly hair and a fluffy bathrobe crept into the room to check on the baby.  
The cat dropped the bedtime story. "Meow!"  
Kitty quickly jumped up on the rail and plopped its butt down, nonchalantly licking its paws. It uttered a soft growl.  
Maria frowned at the cat, but as it wasn't a snake or an iguana, she seem to think there was much harm to it, and even thought it cute that her pet had presumptuously chosen to show up for guard duty on third watch.  
She smiled and petted him, then pulled the blankets over the baby. Her finger flipped the on switch on the Safe Watch baby monitor attached to the windowsill.  
The woman seemed to be only wearing the robe for warmth. Beneath she only had on a peek-a-boo teddy, and everything was hanging out.  
With indifference, the cat watched her cinch the lingerie up around her hips, squeezing her breasts together like he wasn't there.  
When the cat tilted its head to the side, giving her a look that said "Is there milk in there," she looked a bit embarrassed and stuck out her tongue at him.  
She whirled around, robe billowing around her as she did a fast tiptoe back outside.  
The cat watched impatiently as she crept through her bedroom door with mouse-like silence, pulling it closed behind her with deliberate slowness, so as to not wake the baby.  
When the door clicked shut, the cat jumped back on the bed, placing its paw on the baby's chest as before.  
"`We have come to fish for the herring fish that live in this beautiful sea."  
The cat's eyes glowed red. Both of its paws now pressed on the baby's chest. Little Jose looked worried, but he liked to hear the cat talk.  
"Wynken and Blyken are two little eyes," the cat intoned., its voice becoming steadily more demonic sounding with each word. "And nod is a little head. And the wooden shoe that sailed the skies is a wee one's trundle bed!"  
And then its mouth formed a giant O, revealing a darkness blacker than the heart of space, a powerful vacuum that sucked away the air of anything it touched, a sinister draining face that took away one's breath without moving any material objects in the vicinity save for a gentle tug that could easily be confused with the breeze coming from the slight crack in the nearby window.  
The baby, hypnotized by the poetry and the cat, could only stare in helpless terror as the cat steadily pulled his breath into the void.  
The expensive video baby monitor by the bed did not show this. Even had the parents been watching (they hadn't), they would have only witnessed a cute scene of a self important cat resting on the stomach of a curious baby, except the baby's mouth was forming a perfect O, like singing an incredibly long note and forgetting the next syllable.  
Unfortunately, the child's parents were, at the moment, in the process of making another baby, and couldn't be bothered with John Whiskers and His Amazing Vacuum Cleaner Mouth.  
In the space of a minute, the cat had emptied the child's lungs, and he breathed no more, his face staring glassy eyed at the ceiling as the cat leapt to the floor with the grace and flair of a ballerina.  
When the mother went to check Josito's crib the next morning, she took one look at the tiny lifeless body and screamed.

***  
Very few, if any, understand the full power of the periodic table of the elements. Unknown to most, it is more than just a mere collection of atomic weights, figures and polarity symbols.  
It's about people. It's about relationships. It's about being.  
For example, the element of steel is composed of Iron and Carbon, numbers 26 and 6 on the periodic table, respectively. Its symbol Fe3C, but it is also a man. A man who can crush your hand to bone if he wants. A man who doesn't need the jaws of life to escape a wreck. A man, who, if by some implausible event, ever happened to become deceased, would revert back to Iron and Carbon once more.  
Steel is a true elemental, one of hundreds that serve before the High Council of the Universe.  
The Council's mission was to contain all irregularities in the universe, to send forces to each dimension to preserve the stability of all time and space, and to complete its objective without sentimentality or emotional bias. To preserve life, heavy transuranic elements were not sent, but rather the weaker forms that could perform adequately in such conditions. Such as Diamond, Silver or Copper.  
When the matter of the cat was brought before the Director of the Universe, the Council did not immediately assign Steel to the case. Instead, they chose the element Jet, otherwise known as Lignite.  
The Council consisted of seven pale men in robes, called the 'Sightless Ones".  
They had mouths and ears, but no eyes, not even indentations for their eye sockets. They didn't need them. Eyeless Ones were the embodiment of the properties of nature. Time, Motion, Gravitation, Magnetism, Temperature, Force and Light. With their inner eyes, they saw through matter to the very particle.  
These elders sat on thrones high above a vast grid resembling that of a chess board, but with squares covered with mystical symbols and framed with fine wood and gold. The board was framed by four marble walls, massive Doric columns, and vast windows overlooking a sea of celestial lights.  
Without moving their lips, the elders spoke the word "Jet" in unison. The resulting sound was like that of a hurricane blowing through a mountain cave.  
A square on the far end of the chessboard suddenly flashed bright like the sun, and then a dark skinned naked woman popped into existence, staring up at the Sightless Ones with an utter lack of surprise. She knelt on the floor like Discobolos, the discus player depicted in sculpture, for it pleased the elders to have her posed in this way.  
Elements don't care if they're naked. They don't even have genitalia unless they will it to be present. Therefore, her first words were not, "I'd like some clothes, dammit," but rather, "I have been summoned?"

A man and a woman had just left the hospital with their newborn baby. The woman, a blonde in baggy Looney Tunes print, was in tears, clutching a swaddled infant to her chest. "John, I'm not giving up my baby!"  
The child howled in response, adding to the chorus of misery.  
They stood on the front stoop of a split level house with a mortgage that hadn't been paid in three months. The door hung wide open, but neither one wanted to enter until things got resolved.  
"Donna, we went over this! We can't afford a baby! We're not making enough money to support him!" The man had short cropped yellow hair, baggy jeans and a wife beater that showed off a pair of muscular arms deeply tanned from long hours of nailing roofing shingles. "Look, I know it's too late to have an abortion, but we can still do something. There are agencies."  
"I'm not giving my son to some stranger! Like it or not, this baby is ours, and if our love still means anything to you, you're going to do everything you can to help me raise him!"  
"Dammit, Donna! Don't you dare use this baby as a bargaining chip! I'm not going to be forced into some shit marriage because you conveniently forgot the birth control!"  
"*I forgot*! And what were you doing exactly? Your sperm didn't just magically appear on my uterine wall! It's your fault just as much as mine, and you know it!"  
She forced down another sob, trying to look tough.  
"This isn't about the baby, is it?" She pushed an edge into her voice. "It's about Liz! You're still with her, aren't you!"  
He didn't deny it. "It's...complicated."  
"You bastard..." And she broke down in tears.  
The cat approached them unobserved, calmly taking in the proceedings.  
When it overheard them speak about how much a burden this small helpless human being had caused to both parties, it almost seemed to smile.


End file.
